AL GORE, straining to get into “The Guinness Book of Records” for serving up more Whoppers than Burger King, must be on his best behavior tonight.

None of this accusing George W. Bush of being a hand servant to Big Oil or particularly Big Tobacco as he has done in the past.

This is a bad ring to fight in, Al.

This town in general, and this campus of Wake Forest University in particular, was almost built brick by brick by tobacco.

“Look at the city,” said Brian Shiller, editor of The Old Black and Gold, the campus newspaper for Wake Forest.

“Down the road is R.J. Reynolds in Winston-Salem. Up the road in Richmond is Marlboro and Philip Morris.”

Shiller, 21, was neither defending nor attacking. He was just saying you can’t get away from the name Reynolds in Winston-Salem. The money they made after they arrived here at the turn of the century were phone numbers with a couple of zeroes added.

The Reynolds family put this town on the map and virtually gave Wake Forest, founded in 1834, almost all the very land on which today it sits.

So much for the evil weed of which Al Gore’s family made fortunes in Tennessee. And so much for his flip-flop of his family heritage that made him a rich man. Well, there he goes again.

In September 1988, in the beautiful Wait Chapel, where the debate will be held tonight, there was another debate.

That was when Dubya’s father, George Bush, started his trip to the White House by thrashing Democrat rival Michael Dukakis to shreds.

So I walk around the magnificent Wait Chapel, which tonight will house 2,250 interested parties, and ask the kids what they think about tonight’s punch-up.

“I’m really what you call an independent voter,” said 21-year-old Katie Spraldin. “I don’t know how I’m going to vote, but I just want them to answer the questions they are asked without making a speech.”

Said Matthew Reynders, 19, of Iowa: “She’s right. I do lean toward Gore, but I wish politicians would start telling me what I want to know, rather than what they think I would like to hear.”

His friend Chris Doern, also of Iowa, said: “The last time around they tossed the rules out of the window, you know, and we didn’t know what was going on.”

What about Gore’s problem with arm wrestling with the truth?

“In his zeal to make a point, he rolled back to his childishness, sloppiness on his part. He goes too far,” Shiller said.

It should be said, honestly, that Shiller, who leans to the liberal, is no great fan of George W. Bush either.

But one voice here came out this week that slowed a lot of people down.

Stephen Carter, author and professor of law at Yale University, opened this university’s 166th academic year and talked about that terrible “E” word – ethics. He would like to hear from the candidates a little bit more about faith, any faith.

“I do want to hear about religious faith if [the candidates] want to talk about it … if [religious faith] changes them, makes them different people, then it surely will affect how they govern,” Carter proposed.

“We are letting them tell us they are religious without telling us anything about how it affects their views on issues.”

From this sinner’s point of view, sounds pretty reasonable. But at the same time, in this confusing millennium, Wake Forest senior Michael de Groof is Playboy magazine’s on-campus representative.

“Playboy wants pictures of you,” say some signs on campus, which are enthusiastically promoted by de Groof.

“Playboy wants to see you do wild and crazy things in Playboy T-shirts,” is Mike’s mild hustle, who insists it’s for the Playboy Web site, not for the magazine, and has nothing to do with nudity. Not surprisingly, feminists are locking and loading.

What a curious place this beautiful campus is.

It is where Gore dare not mention tobacco, it is where another Bush took the carcass like Grant took Richmond, it is where a decent professor asks for a modicum of ethics and Playboy is loving every second of its naughtiness.

The truth is, Bill Clinton would have been much more comfortable here.